Archery bow presses are widely used in the archery trade for stringing, tuning, and general maintenance of different types of bows including compound bows, traditional bows and crossbows. The compound bow most commonly uses a levering system of cables and pulleys (cams) to bend a set of stiff limbs attached to a central mount (riser), and is usually left strung with the cables and cams holding the limbs under high tension. The traditional style of bow is usually referred to as a bow with no cams, where the limbs are strung with the bow string secured directly to the limbs. The crossbow is basically a very stiff limbed bow, with or without cams, attached crosswise on a stock having a trigger mechanism for holding the bow in a cocked position.
Through the years bow designs have been changing to keep up with the market's demand for faster and quieter shooting bows, resulting in a wide variety of bows on the market today with varying components and limb styles, including bows that have two limbs instead of one limb attached on either end of a riser, known as a quad limb bow. Many bows have short, swept back more parallel limbs, known as parallel limb bows. Other bows may have thinner limbs that are held under higher tension (preloaded) by the cables and cams, so as to bend the limbs back in a radius curvature toward the opposite limb, past parallel, known as preloaded past parallel limb bows. There are even bows with reverse limbs, where the limbs project out from the riser or a stock, away from the archer. Any one of these different bow designs may include various components attached to the limbs, for example axle hubs (for the cams) mounted to the outside curvature of the limbs, or string suppressors near the tips of the limbs for dampening sound and vibration.
These vast differences in bow designs have proven problematic for many of today's bow presses, which lack a quick and effective means to safely, securely, and effectively press these different bow designs. This is mostly due to the limited number of bow limb contacts readily accessible on the presses, or the inability of the bow limb contacts to effectively support or hold the bow limb during the pressing operation. Also, many of today's bow presses are structurally weak or lack the geometric makeup to effectively press bows with short stiff limbs, such as crossbows.
One of the newer designs of bows and growing very popular are the bows with preloaded past parallel limbs. However, applying force to pre-loaded past parallel (PPL) limbs in order to relax the tension on the strings and cables has proven to be a very cumbersome and sometimes a dangerous practice with current bow presses. PPL bows have limbs with preloaded dynamics and curvatures that have a tendency to distort or flatten out at the bow limb contacts when force is applied to the limbs, resulting in excess stress to the bow limbs and/or to other components of the bow. The bow limb contacts also tend to slide on the bow's limbs, and can possibly slide off the limbs and allow the bow to slip out of the press. This could potentially lead to injury to the operator or damage to the bow.
Bow press manufacturers have tried to remedy the problems of PPL bows slipping out of their presses and excess stress applied to these bows when pressing, with little success. Attempts include techniques such as adding stops or holding devices to their presses to secure a bow by the riser, or clamping a bow limb directly to the press's bow limb contacts, or backing off the bow's limb bolts multiple turns in order to reduce the curvature of the bows limbs. These remedies are not ideal as these fixes may result in one or more of the following: more set up time, a higher level of skill required in setting up the press; a bow limb flexing undesirably; undue stress on various components of the bow; or the bow still losing contact with the bow press.
Accordingly there is a need in the archery industry for a bow/crossbow press that is powerful, diverse, and can safely press a wide variety of bows, including PPL bows with past parallel limbs or having limbs with sharp curvatures; that has multiple bow limb contacts readily accessible on the press, with the ability to effectively support or hold the limbs of a bow during the pressing operation without the bow limb distorting or sliding off the bow limb contacts; and that is structured to safely apply the pressing forces needed for bows having stiff limbs.